Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

On your traditional credit report, the eviction judgment will remain for seven years. Beyond your traditional credit report, most landlords these days use a secondary-service called tenant screening, which not only looks at your credit report, but also looks at court records to find ANY eviction filed with your name on it - whether it went to judgment or not. There is no regulation of that "tenant screening" industry aside from the traditional credit reporting laws, so arguably it can stay there for much longer.

There is no legal way to remove an eviction judgment from your credit report. You can reduce the negative impact of the eviction by paying any money judgment entered against you, and obtaining a "satisfaction of judgment" from the landlord, and filing it with the Court. You can dispute the item on your credit report with the agencies, but if it is a proper judgment, they generally won't take it off.

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